


A Perfect Dream

by W1F1N1GHTM4R3



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, F/F, Nonbinary Aoba Moca, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Mitake Ran, Nonbinary Udagawa Tomoe, Soulmates, Trans Female Character, Trans Hazawa Tsugumi, but I love it and wanted to write it so... tsuguran time, but not like story changing it’s just a thing, but only sort of because I was going by memory on ag stories, everyone has different soulmate bond types though it varies by the pair, i can’t remember where I got the dream sharing soulmate idea from, ran and tsugumi are both awkward as hell they just won’t admit it, these are all referenced at some point and tsugu’s is... sorta important
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22728670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/W1F1N1GHTM4R3/pseuds/W1F1N1GHTM4R3
Summary: Ran’s never had dreams alone. She is young, very young, just about five years old, and she dreams of a small, peaceful town among infinite fields of flowers. The world she shares with her soulmate.
Relationships: (those are both only mentioned a bit tsuguran is the focus), Aoba Moca/Uehara Himari, Hazawa Tsugumi/Mitake Ran, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Shirokane Rinko/Udagawa Tomoe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	A Perfect Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Hi welcome to tsuguran hell yall idk what I’m doing I just wanted to write some soulmate tsuguran
> 
> This took me nearly a month to finish but I got set on finishing it tonight and I did it! So have some more content of a ship that I think deserves a lot more love than it gets.
> 
> Also, I hope I handled everything with tsugumi alright, it’s my first time trying to put a trans headcanon really into action. (I’m less worried about the nb characters, especially with tomoe, because I myself am in a sort of weird femininely aligned nb identity, so its at least slightly less unfamiliar territory for me, but if there’s anything that seems yikes for those either you are welcome to let me know)

Ran’s never had dreams alone. She is young, very young, just about five years old, and she dreams of a small, peaceful town among infinite fields of flowers. Most of the people in the town are faceless, polite but lacking in personality. But there is someone else like her there, small and lively. A boy, just about her age, with chocolate brown hair and eyes to match, freckles splashed across his face. He looks familiar, but Ran doesn’t know where she would have met him.

What she does know, is that he’s very friendly, immediately bouncing up to her and introducing himself. Apparently, he’s been dreaming here as long as he can remember, and he’s very excited to share this with someone else. Even if Ran is a little nervous, because she’s worried she’ll speak and scare him away, like everyone else seems to react, she’s not entirely afraid, drawn in by his energy.

They have fun, the boy showing Ran around town until he begins to flicker and fade, waking from the dream.

She wakes up shortly after, and runs to tell her parents about it. She’s heard stories of so many different ways soulmates can connect, after all, so she wants to know if the boy from her dream is hers.

Her parents tell her that he probably is, if these dreams keep continuing. And they do, night after night.

(She doesn’t know that only a few years later, she will choose to forget his name.)

————

Ran meets her soulmate in person later that year, early into winter. Her father is taking her to a nearby park, and when they get there, she spots a group of four kids. Three girls, and one incredibly familiar boy.

The one in her dreams.

Two of the girls, the one with silver hair and the one with pink hair, have their fingers tied together by a small red string that shrinks and grows in length by how far apart they are. Soulmates, clear as day, but having fun just like friends. A bond destined to grow far beyond what it is right now.

The red-haired girl doesn’t have as clear of a soulmate identifier as the others. Either hers is invisible too, a mental link, or it’s just not something Ran can see at a distance. Not that it matters.

She wants to approach them, but they’re all having so much fun together, and she doesn’t want to bother them.

She doesn’t get up the courage to meet them that day.

————

The next day, the silver-haired girl approaches Ran before she even tries to leave her father’s side. Her friends are running around the park, and she seems unbothered by the constant tugs on her string.

She introduces herself as Moca, and invites Ran to join the group.

Eventually, the three others calm down too, and the five settle into a game of shopkeepers.

Ran’s soulmate recognizes her and gives her a familiar smile. She feels a little bad when her smile in response is so small, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

————

While many groups of childhood friends change quickly, the same five members always remain.

Instead, things about the members themselves change.

————

Ran remembers the night perfectly clearly. It happens a couple weeks before her soulmate’s eighth birthday. When she wakes up in the dream space, she notices something different about him.

He doesn’t seem quite as happy as usual.

As they wander around the town, like always, he asks her something. “Ran-chan, if something big were to change about me, would you still care about me the way you do now?”

“That would depend on what it was,” she hums. “If you suddenly turned into an evil villain, I don’t think I would. But otherwise, I think I still would. I don’t know why not, ‘cause you’re my soulmate and all.”

He smiles, and goes quiet for a bit. “Would it stay the same if I were a girl instead?” he finally continues.

“I don’t know if I’d fall in love with you like we’re probably going to when we’re older if you were a girl, but I’d at least still be your friend like now.”

“...I think I might want to be a girl,” he sighs.

Ran looks at him, confused. Is that even possible? She asks him that same question.

“I don’t know,” he replies, “but I want to find out. I’m gonna ask my parents when I wake up. If it’s possible, I think I’d want to go through with it. Could you keep this our secret?”

“Of course.”

————

The next night, her soulmate tells her that it can be possible to change from being a boy to a girl. His parents are okay with him wanting to change, too. He asks Ran to think of him like a girl, if she’s okay with that.

She’s okay with that. She’ll still love her, either way.

A few days later, her soulmate has an idea for a new name, since her old one is a boy’s name and she doesn’t want to use it anymore between the two of them. She chose it with the help of her parents, and she likes it, so she wants to be called Tsugumi.

Ran stumbles the first few times, trying to remember to use that name, but she gets used to it soon enough.

Tsugumi begins to seem more and more like a girl, like anyone from the rest of the group, over the next few months. Sometimes in their dreams, she shows up wearing dresses or skirts or generally more girly outfits. Her chocolate brown hair slowly gets longer, which looks a little silly at first because it was still a boy’s haircut, but just a few days after Tomoe’s birthday, when she pops into Ran’s dream, her hair is clearly restyled to look properly like a girl’s.

That night, she tells Ran about her plans to tell the rest of the group about being a girl once they wake up in the new day.

And with a small smile and a high five, Ran cheers her on.

————

The group accepts Tsugumi as she wants to be without a single problem. She’s still the same person, after all, just a new name for herself!

For the next few years, everything stays relatively the same. They’re the same five girls, close as can be, bound by more than just their soulmate bonds.

(Not that Tomoe’s soulmate is within the group anyway. She still hasn’t found the person with the same eyes, one her natural bright aqua blue (a fact only known because Ako’s eyes are the same), the other a grayish purple, presumably her soulmate’s own eye color.)

Then middle school comes, and flips everything on its head.

Tomoe begins to doubt her identity altogether, but not with the same simple solution Tsugumi had. She certainly had considered the possibility of being a boy in the process, but that didn’t fit right. Neither did being a girl, although it did feel better to her in the end.

She doesn’t settle on any one thing for the next couple years. Eventually, she’ll be content to just say that she feels mostly like a girl, but not entirely, and that’s the best she’ll get to explaining it, at any point. It’s confusing, but Tomoe is happy that way, and that’s the most important part for the five.

(It also prompts Moca to admit, for once, that she doesn’t care much for gender as a whole, and doesn’t particularly identify in any specific way, but doesn’t care how people refer to her, as long as they make sure to make it clear she’s the center of it.)

(Ran begins to wonder if the two might be onto something. She begins to wonder if she really is a girl herself.)

Then, Ran gets split from the rest of the group. While they all have been in the same class for years, now she’s alone.

And everyone’s intimidated by her. She’s soft spoken and prefers to just watch at a distance, but according to everyone (including her friends), she’s got a rather angry resting face. It scares people away. She wouldn’t mind making new friends, if they’d actually talk to her.

She starts hiding away on the roof, alone.

She starts to cut herself off from everyone else.

She doesn’t want to take over the family business, she doesn’t want to do what everyone expects her to do.

Her friends are always busy when she needs them most.

She’s alone now, always.

Except for in her dreams.

She feels like she’s denying Tsugumi’s affections, drowning in her loneliness and stress, unable to do anything in return.

Yet Tsugumi is always there for her, regardless of what Ran does.

And it is Tsugumi who brings Ran back from her hopeless state.

She gets the group together one day after school when no one is busy, and takes them out to get snacks. And then she proposes an idea to them: to form a band together. Just for fun, but also to keep them all as a group. Maybe they could write their own songs (Moca tries to push Ran to share her notebooks full of poems to use), or maybe they could just make covers, but it would be a good way to bond!

Seeing Tsugumi’s surprise burst of boldness sparks a little flicker in Ran’s heart. (Has she always felt like this for her and only just now noticed?)

The only issue is that Tsugumi herself is the only one with any instrument experience that could work for a band.

Well, they can all learn, can’t they?

————

And they certainly learn.

Soon enough, they have their own instruments, and a band name (Afterglow), and ideas, and it’s all coming together smoothly.

Ran doesn’t feel as alone anymore. She has reasons to get out and not bother with her family, but also reasons to never leave her friends behind.

Sure, she takes on a bit of a rebellious appearance on the surface, changing her style completely and finishing it off with a freshly dyed streak of scarlet in her hair, but she feels like she’s in a better place. She really is.

Even if the flowers of her dreams remind her of what she’s avoiding, she relearns to love being there.

She realizes she’s beginning to fall in love with Tsugumi.

————

The rest of middle school goes alright.

Ran starts to understand herself better (asks their friends to refer to them differently), starts to figure out their feelings for Tsugumi, gets most of the things in their life sorted out.

Moca starts casually flirting with Himari, only for Himari to either ignore the attempts or deny that she would love anyone but a man (despite the red string tying her to Moca). Himari’s clearly in denial of her feelings, probably just because of outside pressures.

(It’s hard to miss how she blushes when Moca compliments her on the little things she notices. She’s in love more than she even realizes, it seems like.)

Tsugumi and Ran still keep their shared dreams a secret. When they’re ready to admit their bond, they’ll do it together. But who knows when that will be.

Tomoe is still without so much as a sign of her soulmate. She knows it’s possible that she won’t meet them for a long time, and that’s okay with her, but there is something a little lonely about not finding that one person when your friends around you have theirs.

(She finds her match just a couple months before their final year of middle school ends, in the keyboardist of the band Ako joins. It’s nice to see Tomoe perk back up whenever it comes to relationship talk, ready to gush about her new girlfriend whenever she can.)

The band is doing well, getting better at their music, writing new songs, getting some small shows booked at local live houses. They’re starting to build a bit of a following! And having fun, all while doing it.

————

Just when everything seems to be going well, their first year of high school becomes a disaster.

Together, they decide to participate in a bigger concert than they usually do. It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s also an exciting concept! But things don’t stay hopeful that long.

Ran gets overwhelmed as their father pushes them to start working on flower arranging again and tries to get them to quit the band. It all builds up until they snap in front of Afterglow, and Tomoe snaps right back.

They split away from the group, leaving the other three stranded in the middle.

Ran’s dreams get lonely. Tsugumi isn’t sleeping like she should be, barely getting more than a couple hours of sleep a night, ignoring the pull that comes from Ran being in their world.

(Ran knows what that feels like all too well, from sleepless nights in middle school, feeling their bond tug on their exhaustion, threatening to make them sleep on the spot, until either they gave in and went to sleep or Tsugumi woke up.)

Afterglow is falling apart, and it’s their fault.

A sinking sense of dread hits when they’re sitting in class, minding their own business, and suddenly they want to fall asleep right where they are. They weren’t exactly fully awake anyway, but that’s not just their own tiredness.

Tsugumi fell asleep, somehow. The hardworking, determined student, who would never miss a single class if she could prevent it, fell asleep during the school day.

And the pull doesn’t fade for hours. Normally, someone would’ve woken Tsugumi up by now, but she’s still sleeping.

Ran scrambles to get through their homework as fast as possible before giving in to Tsugumi’s pull.

They wake up in the center of town as usual, but it’s nighttime instead of daytime. Tsugumi is sitting on the edge of the fountain, waiting for them.

“Tsugumi, are you doing alright?” they ask her. “It’s not like you to do this.”

Tsugumi stands up, but doesn’t move any closer. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, just barely loud enough for Ran to hear.

Ran takes the initiative instead, and wraps her up in a hug. “I was just worried about you! Normally, you’re always here waiting to me, but then you stopped showing up for more than a couple hours and you didn’t look okay when you did make it here, and I was seriously worried something bad was happening to you!” They’re crying a little, but fuck it, this is their soulmate they’re talking about, and she’s one of the most important things in their life!

“I’m sorry, Ran-chan, I just got so busy trying to fix everything with the band and student council work that I couldn’t sleep... and now I fainted instead and I don’t know when my body is going to wake up so I’m stuck here until it happens.”

“Promise me... promise me you won’t do this again, okay? I love you too much for this, you need to help yourself too.”

Tsugumi leans fully into Ran’s hug, trembling with exhaustion and quiet tears.

It’s only as they stand there together that Ran realizes they’ve just confessed to Tsugumi, even if she doesn’t completely realize it. But maybe she does, considering how she whispers, in a trembling voice, “I love you too,” as her tears subside.

She slowly pulls away, then takes Ran’s hand and leads them, in unsteady steps, out into the fields. In all their years here, they’ve never been out here before.

Once they’re far enough away from the town that it’s a bit off in the distance, Tsugumi lies down on the ground and invites Ran to join her. They follow, and stare up at the sky.

It’s clear, not a single cloud to be seen, and full of infinite shimmering stars.

Tsugumi points up at a spot in the sky (it’s hard to tell exactly where). “Do you see it? Polaris is right there!”

They’ve never been good at identifying stars like she is, but the size and brightness of it certainly make it easier to spot.

The two stay there together, watching the stars, until the sun begins to rise (and they imagine, the sun sets in reality) and the stars fade away. The town will be waking up soon, but instead of returning, they stay out in the fields.

Ran wonders how many different types of flowers and the meanings of them they still remember. They get up and begin to wander, Tsugumi trailing behind.

As it turns out, they remember more than they expected, pointing out every familiar one to her as they go.

Maybe giving up on the family wasn’t as good of an idea as they originally thought it was. They miss it, just a little.

If only their father would accept that they want to do the band too, they would kind of like to start doing it again.

It’s kind of nice to just walk with their soulmate and not worry about anything important, to just talk about the flowers instead. But before the sun even starts to set, reality starts to call again. They start to flicker away as they wake up. For once, they aren’t ready to leave.

Tsugumi surprises them just before they wake up with a small, quick kiss to their lips.

————

Ran wakes up, and they can only imagine how intensely they’re blushing right now.

Tsugumi kissed them! In their dream, sure, but still! She did that!

It’s still dark outside, but a quick glance at their phone tells them they really aren’t up all that much earlier than usual anyway. They decide it’s easiest to get ready now. There’s really no point in going back to sleep, it’s too close to when they’d wake up normally.

The school day starts off rough, with Tsugumi still asleep and the call to join her still pulling at the corners of Ran’s thoughts until, midway through the day, she finally wakes up. Just around lunchtime, Tsugumi texts them to tell them where she is, if they want to come visit.

They’re certainly going to, but not until school ends for the day (Tsugumi would probably yell at them for skipping part of the day, even if she is their soulmate and... possibly their girlfriend now and would understand why they came) and they make a quick stop at home for something.

Which is to say, they’re gonna grab some flowers to give her. Make a little thing for her with some meaning to it. Maybe she’ll understand it, after everything they told her.

Of course, why would they be lucky when it comes to arriving? The others are all there too.

Tomoe fixes a mismatched glare at them. Moca and Himari wave hello at them instead, mostly ignoring the tension.

Tsugumi looks like she’s in the process of getting up, despite the dead tired expression she’s wearing. Despite how close to a full day she slept, she’s still carrying the brunt of her exhaustion around.

But she smiles brightly as she takes a few wobbly steps forward to join the others. The smile hides the absolute hell she’s about to bring on her friends.

Not long later, everyone’s problems are getting sorted out, thanks to Tsugumi’s pent-up frustration and current state caused by them. The band is back on track (more or less), and as soon as Tsugumi is back to full health, they’ll be back to their same as always.

Maybe.

————

Things don’t stay the same, but they don’t stray too far away from the way they were either.

The most important change of all happens in another dream.

Ran goes to sleep earlier than usual, just enough time to head out into the fields, gather some flowers, and return before Tsugumi arrives. They’re nervous about doing this, but it’s been a few weeks since Tsugumi kissed them, and they really need to get this out before they overthink it more than they have already.

They need to tell her about their feelings. Properly this time, not the accidentally spill from before.

Soon enough, Tsugumi materializes in the town square, slowly flickering into existence until she’s fully asleep and only in their world. Ran takes a deep breath, and walks over.

“Ran-chan, you’re here early!” A smile lights up her face. Shit, she’s cute.

“I guess I am.”

“Do you have something for me? It kinda looks like you’re hiding something behind your back.”

“Y-yeah.” They reveal the flowers they’re holding and hold them out for her to take. “They’re for you... if you want them.”

Tsugumi’s eyes light up as she sees the flowers and takes them without hesitation.

“I also wanted to tell you something.”

She tilts her head slightly, trying to figure out what Ran might want to say.

“I- Well, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner about this. But... are we dating now? Because y’know, I kind of confessed my feelings to you and then you kissed me but we never said anything about it after that and I don’t want to take it the wrong way if that’s not what you meant.” Their face flushes, mostly from awkward embarrassment.

Tsugumi places her hands on their shoulders and her expression melts from confusion into a soft, sweet smile. “Only if you’re okay with it. I wouldn’t force you into it if you aren’t ready.”

They shake their head. “No, no, of course I’m okay with it. I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t, I don’t think. But...”

Their voice trails off. It’s such a silly question and really shouldn’t be something they want to ask, so they just stop.

“But what, Ran-chan?”

“Do you mind if we don’t tell the others yet, Tsugumi? They don’t even know we’re soulmates, and I’m pretty sure I’m not ready to share that yet... Especially since we only just figured-,” they wave their hands in a loose circle, “-all this out. Yeah, we’ve know them forever, I know, it’s kinda silly to not want to tell them but I’m not ready yet.”

“Of course that’s fine! Honestly, I don’t think I’m really ready either. It’s great being able to finally push our bond into place and all and put a name to our relationship that isn’t “soulmates that are definitely meant to be romantic because we’re both lesbians but we’re sort of friends and sort of more because we can’t figure ourselves out”, but it’s also a huge deal! I’m okay keeping it a secret for now.”

They both go silent for a few moments, with no idea how to continue. Tsugumi breaks the silence first, suggesting, “We should get on with our usual nightly adventures, I guess.”

Ran nods. They reach for Tsugumi’s free hand, gently wrapping their fingers around hers. And together, they wander off into town again.

————

Their relationship mostly stays a secret for a while. A few people pick up on it quickly, but none of the band, luckily. Anyone who does know agrees to not share it until the pair is ready to.

It’s a few months later when anyone in the band picks up on it at all.

Despite her occasional faults when it comes to perception, Tomoe is the first to say anything about it. It’s just a couple texts, asking if she was right in noticing that things weren’t quite the same between Ran and Tsugumi, but when both refuse to give her a clear answer, she assumes it means things had changed like she thought.

(Later on, she admits she didn’t notice it at all at first, but Rinko did, since she was more aware of slow changes because she didn’t see the rest of Afterglow that often, and pointed it out to Tomoe first.)

At least it’s not as uncomfortable as when Ran, Tsugumi, and Tomoe walked in on what was definitely some sort of make out session between Moca and Himari before practice. At least Himari finally got over her denial of liking people besides guys to accept her soulmate as she is.

(They pretty quickly tell everyone that they started dating in secret a couple weeks ago, but it exploded from there. If only Ran and Tsugumi had that sort of confidence.)

But Tomoe isn’t the best secret keeper either, and soon enough the other two are a little suspicious too.

One night, the pair finally decides to tell everyone about it at the next practice.

It goes fine! Moca jokes that Ran “has to be gentle with our precious Tsugu”, as if they would ever want to hurt her in the first place, but besides that, everything is quite chill. It’s not like much has actually changed. The only difference is that the band knows they’re soulmates and girlfriends!

————

Strange things happen to the soulmates as time continues on.

They find out that if they fall asleep together, they no longer travel to their dream world. Apparently, being in such close proximity to each other means that they no longer need to link up mentally. Their bond exists to keep them together at a distance, when they aren’t right with each other.

At first they thought it meant their bond was dying, that they were no longer soulmates after so long. But a night apart and they were right back in, so it seemed like wasn’t a broken bond thing, but rather a weird quirk in their bond.

So they see a lot less of the town as they get older, ending up spending a lot more nights together and rarely needing the shared dream space anymore.

It’s a little sad, almost, that they don’t get to see the place that made up such a crucial part of their childhoods often anymore, but instead, they’re together in reality far more often.

And Ran is fine with that. They’d rather fall asleep with Tsugumi curled up beside them than have to wait until they both woke up in another reality to be so close. They prefer waking up to see chocolate brown hair and the spray of freckles across Tsugumi’s face to seeing it fade away as the dream ends.

They may have mostly lost the other side of their life, but instead, the key to that side is along with them, and she’s the most important piece of it all.

**Author's Note:**

> And happy Valentine’s Day! I hope these disaster girls made for a decent random surprise for the day :)


End file.
